This question is one I ask myself often, and I kept my client on the telephone . . . → Read More: These are a Few of Our Favorite Things]]> Not long ago, a client, trying to select whom to use among the agents listed in the Travel and Leisure ”A” List for Travel Agents for Italy, asked me bluntly : “What is it you love about Italy ?”

This question is one I ask myself often, and I kept my client on the telephone for some time, as I explained why our travelers keep returning to Italy – and why I have chosen to make my life here.

The list that follows is far from complete and is yours’ and mine — because on your return, we always send you a survey that asks among other things what you enjoyed most.

MARKETS. Italy’s markets are endlessly varied and endlessly fascinating. There is no better opportunity to understand Italians in their day-to-day lives than to watch them in unguarded moments as they go about their daily food shopping ritual at the mercato.  Situated in an indoor building or in a piazza or a street, the mercato is a celebration of fresh, seasonal raw ingredients.  Though produce is at the heart of the mercato, surrounding stalls and stores often sell fresh fish, poultry, meats, local wines, housewares, clothes, fresh pasta… 

WILD FLOWERS IN WINTER.  Nearly all low-lying, uncultivated areas of central and southern Italy now display a blanket of wild flowers. These are daisies and dandelions, flowering wild mint and spring cyclamen, flowering arugola, malva, chamomile and many others indigenous to the place. The picture of Isabel, below, was taken in mid-winter in the Vatican Gardens.

TRAINS.  The efficiency and speed of Italy’s trains is amazing. Florence to Rome is 90 minutes. Rome to Naples is 55 minutes.  You can have breakfast in Rome and lunch in Venice. Nearly every Eurostar train will have a smart little café which will make you an excellent cappuccino with Illy coffee, sucked down in a china cup as you whizz through landscape at up to 300 kilometers per hour. First class offers complimentary drinks, good snacks and newspapers at your seat, plus a Caffarel chocolate or two. And the views — of ancient architecture, agriculture, mountains, sea, rounded hills, olive groves, hill towns — are remarkable, a trip in themselves.

ARTISANS. From paper makers to ceramicists to cheese makers to presepio (Christmas creche) makers to toy makers to jewelers to sculptors to mask makers to wine makers to buffalo leather makers…

Up and down the peninsula, and across its several islands, the list goes on and on and on !

We introduce you to as many artisans as you would like. Some hold private workshops just for children. Many of the artisans are our friends. Every single one of them we admire. With his or her hands and passion, each of them ensures the continuity of a traditional Italian art that — with some variations — is still produced in an ancient way.

THE BAR. Every Travel Plan we write includes copious information on the Italian Café Bar — the ins-and-outs of ordering, the regional specialties, and why the café is so consequential in the fabric of day-to-day Italian life.

I start every morning in one (“un veneziano e un cappuccino, per piacere.“) So do most people I know. When I am away from Italy I miss intensely the smells, the delicious and invigorating flavors, the sweet conviviality of the Bar. If the Bar is combined with a good pastry store, all the better. We note favorites — and what to sample there — in all the locations you will be visiting.

EXPERIENCES ONLY ITALY CAN PROVIDE. Walking with sheep following a trail and a tradition that are over one thousand years old.

Running through a plateau of flowering lentils and poppies, at the foothills of an ancient hilltown.

Meandering under the boughs of a grape-vine that has produced wines for more than a century.

Vulci.

GARDENS. Italy has continental Europe’s most beautiful gardens. We will guide you to as many as you wish and know them all personally.  These range from city gardens (like Rome’s Municipal rose garden below)…

to formal Renaissance parks like Villa Lante…

to the gardens of Villa Melzi on Como…

To the botanically extraordinary and extensive Sigurta’ Gardens…

and my desert island garden, Ninfa…

There are also spontaneous gardens, like the natural rock garden you will see if you join us on the Transumanza…

STYLE. Italians care how they look, are interested in how you look, and put effort into dressing. Some of the best dressed women I know are over 80, and gather in the sun in our local park every morning, drink cappuccino and chat. Their shoes are polished, their hair in order, their skirts and coats becoming and elegant. They care.

And apparently always have.

CHILDREN COME IN IMMEDIATE AND DIRECT CONTACT WITH HISTORY. Not in a museum but deeply and yet informally within history.  They run on it and under it and skip rope on it.  They touch it with their hands.

ICE CREAM. We’ve written so much about this in the Plans we develop for you.  We will write about it again. The world’s best artisanal gelato (and granita and semifreddi) is made and sold here. We will tell you where to find it.

PAESTUM.  To me the single most magical archeological site in Italy. It makes my heart sing each time I visit.

And when I have soaked up the spirit and beauty of the place and feel that I can store it within me until the next visit, I find another sort of magic at Tenuta Vannullo, Campania’s only organic dairy, with mozzarella that will make you vow never to eat buffalo mozzarella anywhere else. Below is one of the lovely bufale whose milk makes the splendid cheese.

SWALLOWS AND SWIFTS. One of the distinct, evocative sounds of Italy, heard in every region and nearly every place, is the morning and evening call of the swallows. These graceful birds dart in and out of bell towers, swoop over tiled roofs, and fill the skies twice a day with their magical call. No other sound — except the clink of spoons against espresso cups as you walk past a cafe’ bar in the morning — is more evocative of Italy.

COOL. The cool air that greets you on hot summer days, most of all in Rome, as you walk past an ancient palazzo whose great portal is open. The damp shadowed cool of the marble interior oozes out onto the street providing an intense shot of refreshment.

REGIONAL DIFFERENCE.  When Italy was unified in 1861, it was likely that two Italians living 200 miles apart would be unable to understand much of what the other said.

To take the train from Bolzano to Sicily (an absolutely extraordinary 14-18 hour train trip through ten regions) means hearing a dizzying number of Italian dialects as passengers get on and off — but more amazing still (and without leaving your train window) experiencing an ever changing tableau of architecture, station styles, trees, agriculture, vineyard trellising techniques, colors of shutters, ways of hanging laundry…

Imagine a country that is slightly smaller than the New Mexico.  And that can bring you the diversity represented by these three pictures.

Please mix your regions, and bring as much diversity into your trips as you can.  This is one of the great joys of traveling in Italy.

EXPRESSIVENESS.  We tried out not long ago a hotel in Paestum.  My Italophilic mother-in-law remarked : “This is the first hotel in Italy I have ever been where the staff at the desk did not smile.” Italians do smile. Luigi Barzini and so many others discuss this much better than can I, without falling into cliche or over-generalization, but some of the national qualities of Italians that you have noted are their enthusiasm for expression through word, smile, song, gesture…

WATER.  We’ve written about Italian water before.  With very few exceptions (Florence), it is simply delicious, and the waters that run through Venetians’ and some Romans’ taps are the same ones that, bottled, retail for $6 and up in American gourmet stores.

Ovid praised Sulmona's waters, and he was quite right

OLIVE OIL.  Our clients pick olives, make olive oil, bring it home. They learn how to cook with it, how to differentiate between oils, and how to store it. This autumn in Tuscany we are offering seminars (two to three days) for olive oil enthusiasts (we hope to join in ourselves.)

Insider’s Italy is a company run by a family that loves Italy. I’ve lived here for more than 30 years, but my family has been here since the 1920s. To share my love for this, my birthplace, is the whole reason I run Insider’s Italy.

Does any country have as many ways to make a child . . . → Read More: Children in Italy]]> Does any other country have as many names for children as does Italy ? First you are a creatura (a “creature”), then a bimbo or bimba, then you are a bambino or a bambina, then you are a ragazzo or a ragazza.

Does any country have as many ways to make a child feel welcome ?

Taking off in Viterbo

Insider’s Italy’s children clients are made immediately aware of how Italians make children feel : valued.

In front of one of the most celebrated landscapes in Tuscany, after an Insider's Italy Walk

Children in Italy are from the beginning treated as real, precious people, whose needs and desires are of paramount importance.

The world stops for children in Italy in a way that it does not anywhere else we know.

Tag at Ostia Antica, Rome's ancient port city

Italians bend over backwards for children, with waiters bringing high chairs before you ask for them, keeping bread baskets consistently filled with bread sticks and focaccia, proposing succulent, healthy children’s menu offerings (and bringing them well before adults’ dishes), often cheerfully cutting them up for young diners. Waiters lift small children up to admire the dessert table. Storekeepers often have some little present to hand a younger child. Vendors in open markets offer children tangerines and figs. All across Rome, children are given complimentary slices of fragrant white pizza.

I was lucky enough to be an Italian child, born in Rome.

Me in Venice, in 1967

My son and daughter are having an Italian childhood.

On the terrace, Amalfi

And when they were born they joined our family staff, as they have participated in every single but one of our research trips. Nathan Louis began his Insider’s Italy travels at the age of three months, with a week in southern Tuscany. Isabel started her travels at six weeks, to the southern Riviera and Lucca.  Our research trips occur generally every two to six weeks and are Italy-wide. Through necessity coupled with interest, we have become experts on planning child-friendly, upscale Italian travels.

Dancing among the lentils and wildflowers at Castelluccio

With the ease that comes with familiarity — my own memories of childhood Italy-wide travels —  I have a real feel for what children, teenagers and young adults will enjoy.

Testing out an Insider's Italy walk designed for children near Atrani

I am required to make continual discoveries that will delight the young

At the Tarquinia museum

..and consider how to make travels easy and enjoyable for their parents.

Studying 9th century mosaics in Ravenna

We use docents and guides (for tours, workshops, classes, walking, bicycling, cooking adventures) throughout the country — from Venice to Sicily and many places in between.

Our beloved guide Francesca in Florence, whom all children love so much

We book each one of them personally.

With our guide in Florence at the Opera del Duomo museum, a children's favorite

When there are kids in the party, we personally tell them about the children, including their ages and their special interests : our guides and teachers plan experiences that go far beyond children’s expectations.

Insider’s Italy kids learn to make frescoes in Florence

Mosaics in Ravenna

Pressing grapes in Lazio to make into wine

Renaissance paper in Orvieto

How to make gnocchi in Amalfi

Making gnocchi in Amalfi in a private family cooking class

How to make extra virgin olive oil (hand picking and pressing olives, and then sampling the minutes-old oil)

Insider’s Italy children learn how acqueducts are constructed…

The Acqua Vergine in Rome

By climbing on them.

The 21st century child and 19 century BC aqueduct

We provide the experiences that will make for memory after memory, substantial, remarkable experiences for a child to remember all of her life.

Our Insider’s Children’s Reading List and children’s language program suggestions help kids prepare too for their Italian adventures.

Choosing art supplies in Florence, for a day of painting and drawing

We book hotels/inns/villas directly only (and have stayed in or know intimately every accommodation we book.)

One of our favorite villas for families with children

Hotels we most often book by number, often choosing particular rooms for their suitability to families with children.  Nathan Louis and Isabel also make me consistently aware of the appropriateness of our villas and hotels to families with children.

“What do our children eat in Italy ?”  Insider’s Italy to the rescue on this one, with oodles of detail on how to find and request child-delighting delicacies on any restaurant menu, and what other wonderful sources to explore for picnics, snacks and treats — including our own favorite organic goodies (and where to find them.)

Isabel and her organic Insalata Caprese in Tuscany

And we simplify the lives of our clients with children.

Sampling superb gelato on Lake Bracciano

So many of our travelers — most of all, perhaps, busy parents — are over-scheduled, overstressed, overtired  – and don’t have the time to undertake their own research. Our new Ultimo service is of special value here — all you need do is buy your air tickets — as we meticulously tailor plan every detail of your trip, working around your interests and preferences.

Children love Paestum for the archeology, the opportunity to run around so freely or for the world's best mozzarella ?

Parents are delighted to delegate travel planning to an expert who will take into account the interests and needs of every traveler.

“Should I take a stroller to Venice ?  If so, what kind ?”  ”My daughter is eight, is she too young for the Cinque Terre trails ?” ”Is the Amalfi coast suitable for an infant?”  ”What can I show my teenager in Florence that will really engage him ?”  Insider’s Italy has the responses to all of these. Either we have confronted the situations ourselves as parents or I can draw for answers into the archives of my own youth.

Running through the Baths of Caracalla in Rome

One of our clients’ children wrote  : “You may not quite remember me, but almost nine years ago my parents used your service to plan what still stands as the most memorable trip my family has ever taken. Although I was only twelve when we spent those incredible eight weeks in Italy, it was then that I fell in love with the country, everything from the culture to the language to the food. I have since studied Italian in college and returned to Italy twice on my own. I traveled to Tuscany on a high school program in 2001 and spent the summer of 2003 in Florence studying Italian.”

Posing as an Etruscan

Thanks to this young woman’s parents, with whom we co-planned an Italian itinerary, one young woman’s life was changed.  We recently planned her suprise engagement party — in Rome.

Meeting the Befana

It was always my hope to have children in Italy.  To have them with us as we make our discoveries is an experience beyond any I had hoped.

And then to share those experiences with other children and their parents is for me one of the great joys of Insider’s Italy.

Isabel searches for Il Blizzard

Saturday as the noon Janiculum noon-time cannon sounded

I visited my favorite lions in the world today, in Piazza del Popolo, to see if the snow had melted from their flat, granite heads : it had.  The Pantheon however is still wearing . . . → Read More: The Monday After the Roman Snow]]> Rome is still deep in the thrall of its rare snow.

Saturday as the noon Janiculum noon-time cannon sounded

I visited my favorite lions in the world today, in Piazza del Popolo, to see if the snow had melted from their flat, granite heads : it had.  The Pantheon however is still wearing a frosty little cap around its dome. Romans march about in their Moon Boots, and the city still wears its festive air. Everyone listens to the unfamiliar crunch-crunch of their feet, with snow beneath, in those sunless alleys where the snow still stands. Nathan Louis, nine, takes advantage today of the second day off from school and goes sledding, down a shadowed, icy hill below Villa Borghese, and food stores and markets, if open at all, have run exceptionally low on produce, milk, pasta and meat.  The polemics between the Civil Protection and Rome’s mayor, Alemanno, are firey and confused, and all the rage in the papers.  The top headline of Il Messagero blares : “Rome between Marvel and Chaos !” Alemanno has declared the city in a state of “catastrophe”, continues to insist that we travel only in cars with snow tires or chains, and has just now announced the third day of school closing, despite the fact that the snow is nearly all gone from all road surfaces.

A Frosty Marcus Aurelius and his Horse on the Capitoline Hill. What snow is left is in a small mound in the foreground.

Thirty two degrees fahrenheit (0 centigrade) at the Pantheon. A few puddles at its feet and a small white powdery crown on its dome are the relics of the Saturday snowstorm

It seems that everyone is talking about what they are cooking and eating — on the train today, across town (which stopped for long and unexplained pauses) I overheard people on their cellphones, asking : “hai comprato la ricottina ? mi serve  la ricottina !” (Have you got the ricotta ? I need the ricotta !) and “oggi a pranzo i tagliolini, hai capito ?” (the <egg pasta> tagliolini, do you understand ?) While I was purchasing Parmesan today, three people in line ahead of me (all men) were buying polenta. Always interested in these things, I asked them how they would be preparing it. One told me he would be preparing it with gorgonzola for himself, his wife, their grandson, and their dog.  The second said his wife would be cooking it most likely with sausage and a tomato sauce. The third said that his mother was from Venice and would be grilling it, and they would have it with melted fontina. I bought some too. When the next snow flakes start to fall, which is predicted for tonight, I will see how the spirit moves me, as I take out my copper pan and big wooden spoon.

The Snow Emergency continues in Rome.

Amalfi at Twilight

We will guide you to this quieter Renaissance square in Florence

Rome, Florence and Venice are the cities that you continue to visit most frequently, but as ever, we plan your days there with meticulous . . . → Read More: What’s New for 2012 ?]]> We plan trips that we feel are the most interesting independent adventures in Italy.

Amalfi at Twilight

We will guide you to this quieter Renaissance square in Florence

Rome, Florence and Venice are the cities that you continue to visit most frequently, but as ever, we plan your days there with meticulous care to keep you away as much as possible from crowds and areas of unsustainable tourism.

A quite unique way of looking at Florence's Duomo dome

We make excellent use of docents in each of these cities, and work into your itineraries sights and neighborhoods of exceptional interest that are off the beaten path.

With a specialized children's docent in Rome

With our Ultimo service we undertake all restaurant bookings with a special focus, if you wish, on smaller, family-run osterie and trattorie that provide a Slow Food philosophy.

Slow Food favorite in Florence

Slow Food favorite in Veneto

In Venice we coordinate a half or full day’s private adventure on an historic, flat-bottomed Venetian boat that will take you to locations in the Lagoon and archipelago where no ferry or water boat can ever go.

Ten delightful California clients this summer swam from a little island within sight of Venice in clear and beautiful waters, this after a magnificent, entirely seasonal lunch served on board (seafood fished that morning.)

In Florence we lead you to Renaissance gardens not in guidebooks.

Our Favorite Florentine garden, off the beaten path, never crowded, even in summer

… to the Vasari Corridor (not usually open), up scaffolding to inspect 15th century frescoes that are under meticulous restoration, to processions in historic costume..

Recreation of the Procession of the Magi in Florence's Piazza della Signoria on Epiphany Day

…and to the stores, markets and pastry shops that Florentines love and patronize.

The most Florentine of all street markets, a local affair, at Santo Spirito

In Florence for children we integrate special children’s workshops (fresco making, dressing up in Renaissance costumes, exploring Palazzo Vecchio in the company of actors who play the role of historic Renaissance figures.)

Fresco making workshop

We include workshops in which you will taste new artisan gelato flavors and learn what makes a great Italian ice cream.

What is the difference between gelato and ice cream ? Learn the answer.

How many travelers know about the top floor of the Museum of the Florentine House ?   It is very difficult to see, but every Ultimo or Completo client who would like to visit it can do so easily through Insider’s Italy.

We keep you away from the crowds and show you our Insider's Venice

In Umbria you learn to hunt a truffle and how to make Renaissance paper.

Private workshop : making Renaissance paper in Umbria

You pick olives and make extra virgin oil in Tuscany.

On the Amalfi coast and Campania, you discover how to make the best mozzarella on earth.

Our youngest clients – and sometimes their parents too –  dance through wild flowers.

Dancing through the poppies and flowering lentils near the Marche border

Insider’s Italy travelers visit towns most have never heard of.  These destinations are often called the highlight of their trips.

When San Gimignano (population 7000) receives close to 50,000 visitors a year, why add to the onslaught when there are towns of equivalent interest elsewhere that we shall guide you to — and where you will not see anyone who is not Italian ?

This town, like San Gimignano, is magnificently walled and full of medieval towers

Rovereto, one of our favorite of all cities (Trentino Alto Adige)

Rome is my home, and the most exciting and overwhelming of all Italian cities.  I try to show it to you through my eyes, combining an intelligent way of visiting the essential, better known sites with a special entree into those magical places that you will not find on your own.

The Baths of Caracalla, one of my single favorite places in all of Rome

How to begin planning for 2012 ? Start with our no-obligation survey.  We will be back in touch very quickly with our preliminary ideas, ready for your review.

Here’s to joyful travels ahead in Italy this year.

Marjorie, at the beach at Terracina

Top terrace, before a plan

Big Terrace, before a plan

Add plants – principally geraniums and pelargoniums – from the annual Landriana garden fair.

Acquisitions from Landriana

Add Piero, his son . . . → Read More: La Passione ! (A Roman Terrace Garden)]]> Take one reasonably nice but uninspired Roman terrace, with ten years of accumulated, cluttered pots and four untended olive trees.

Top terrace, before a plan

Big Terrace, before a plan

Add plants – principally geraniums and pelargoniums – from the annual Landriana garden fair.

Acquisitions from Landriana

Add Piero, his son Giampiero and his crew of gardener magicians.

Piero

Giampiero

La Passione !  La Fantasia !  La volonta’ di far qualcosa di emozionante ! 

Add the enthusiasm of two small children.

Putting holes in the bottom of the pots

Filling pots with lavenders

And arcadia emerges.

Herb garden and Amalfi wall, top terrace

The corridor, south end

String beans, grapes and (hanging) tomatoes

There are so many stories to tell : of a gardener who on our first day of work found a tiny self seeded fig tree among the jasmines, spent 20 minutes digging it out, and then re-planted it.

The rescue of the tiny fig tree

The Rescued Fig in a new home

Of Piero who throws his hands into any herb plant he passes — most particuarly lemon verbena — and draws the fragrance vigorously to his face, exclaiming “che meraviglia !”

The Corridor, north end

Piero is a great supporter of organic gardening and suggested the inclusion of many flowering plants that would encourage more butterflies and bees to visit our Rome Terrace Garden. Over the course of the week he would bring a small selection of plants — ideas that he had as he watched the garden evolve —  for our consideration. Of course we wanted everything he proposed. Piero understood and loved the Terrace Garden just as much as we did.

The large terrace at midday

View from the top terrace looking down to large terrace

Entrance to the top terrace

Water spout, top terrace

Raspberries, grapes and blackberries on the top terrace

The espaliered fig on the top terrace (it made delicious fruits !)

Beet green, tomato, black raspberry : mid-summer harvesting from the terrace garden

The first salad from our terrace vegetable garden